This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 193

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 193

Nelloa’s plan had been to have Clark run a prominently featured article titled “Princess Nelloa Kelite Awakens Derivative Gate Detection Ability!” and then subtly guide other news outlets to track down the locations mentioned in the piece themselves.
Once they confirmed her ability was genuine, they’d all break the story independently, and the entire Empire would be in uproar.
After the Snoril Gate incident, people had learned about Derivative Gates. Then, mere months later, Bloden had disposed of a monster that appeared in the Imperial Capital’s waters.
Seeing the Emperor’s overwhelming power, the Empire’s people had come to regard him fondly and trust him. Yet many had grown deeply anxious, never knowing where or when the next Derivative Gate might appear.
Nelloa intended to exploit that anxiety.
What if the Empress candidate whom Regent Anna had her eye on had awakened a supernatural ability to detect Derivative Gates?
How would the people react?
‘They’ll certainly see Bloden and me as a pair destined by heaven itself.’
Of course, Hailey had been a complication.
But fortunately, Anna still didn’t know of Hailey’s existence. And Bloden didn’t seem inclined to reveal Hailey to the world unless Anna stepped down as Regent.
Moreover, Hailey looked completely unaware that Baron was Bloden.
‘I still have my chance.’
To nurture that chance, she needed first to create a massive wave of public opinion. This momentum would seat Nelloa—not Hailey—on the throne of Empress.
‘If my plan succeeds, in people’s eyes Hailey will be nothing but a rice cake vendor, while I’ll shine as a saint who protects them all with my supernatural ability.’
With her calculations complete, Nelloa had thrown herself into making Derivative Gate Seeds.
By now, she understood that the side effect of creating seeds was accelerated aging.
The initial shock had been severe, but she’d soon reconsidered.
‘Isn’t that why skincare exists?’
Using Anna’s money, Nelloa began receiving the exorbitantly expensive skincare treatments that high-ranking Imperial nobles underwent. She couldn’t entirely prevent the appearance of premature aging compared to her peers, but she could smooth out wrinkles and cultivate an air of sophisticated maturity.
Between skincare sessions and seed production, the work took longer than she’d anticipated.
In any case, Nelloa had used Kelite-born servants and assassins, along with messenger birds, to sow Derivative Gate Seeds throughout the Empire.
The servants loyal to her had no idea what the seeds they received via messenger bird actually were. They simply obeyed her orders to plant them discreetly at designated locations.
Once the servants sent word to Nelloa that their task was complete, the assassins would execute them, leaving no witnesses.
With the necessary work finished, all that remained was to publish the article.
But then, of all times, an issue arose in Snoril that captured the landowners’ attention.
A ship equipped with rare magical stones had docked at the port, and rumors spread that its captain was someone named Hailey.
Every eye among the landowners turned that way, and articles brimming with speculation poured out.

Someone had uncovered this fact through investigation and run it as a front-page headline. Rumors circulated that several reporters had requested interviews with the Count, yet not a single one had succeeded.
As curiosity grew, the landowners began floating various theories.
“Could Hailey actually be Count Enox’s illegitimate child?”
“I always thought she looked noble.”
“It was strange that someone so beautiful had no known background.”
The facts remained uncertain, but one thing everyone was sure of.
There was a connection between Count Enox and Hailey.
.
.
.
As rumors snowballed by the day, the Lord Robinson grew restless.
In his eyes, Hailey was no longer merely a beautiful young woman to keep as a mistress or casually court—she had become a strategically invaluable marriage candidate.
“Still haven’t arranged a meeting?”
Robinson pressed his butler relentlessly, desperate to see Hailey. But she was never home, always out somewhere. Her manor was currently being maintained by her neighbor Kimarise.
The pressing continued even as Robinson shared tea with Nelloa.
The butler, who had endured his master’s irritation while dabbing cold sweat from his brow, finally offered him frank counsel.
“Perhaps, sir, instead of insisting like this, you should prepare yourself for when you do encounter Miss Hailey?”
“…Prepare? What sort of preparation?”
“Personal grooming, sir.”
“What? My appearance?”
Robinson’s temples bulged as he glared at his butler.
“Are you saying I’m ugly?”
“Not at all, sir. But Miss Hailey’s brother, and the young men in the neighboring house—they’re all uncommonly handsome, are they not?”
Seeing Robinson’s gaze turn toward her, Nelloa nodded while holding her teacup to her lips.
“One must acknowledge what’s true. And if you improved your appearance through proper care, wouldn’t that be good for you as well?”
Robinson found the logic sound and followed his butler’s advice. He hired an expert to oversee his grooming and summoned a dating coach to his manor.
By this point, Nelloa had abandoned her plan to break her story in Snoril.
Gate detection ability was remarkable, but it wasn’t something visible at a glance. Every time Hailey appeared with that magnificent ship, the public’s attention was stolen away.
‘Then I’ll have to change my strategy.’
A few days later, Nelloa set out for the Cathedral, bringing Clark along.

* * *

“Do not doubt. Follow my will, for I am your god. The Lord has sent down this revelation…….”
Nelloa stood in the congregation alongside Clark, attending a service presided over by the High Priest Meltears.
It had been a full week since she’d brought Clark to the Cathedral, promising him an exclusive story, and they’d been staying there ever since.
Today, Meltears’s sermon concerned Divine Power.
“Since the founding of our nation, Divine Power has blossomed only under the Cathedral’s teachings.”
The message was that through worship, one could receive divine revelation and attain Divine Power.
Nelloa maintained the appearance of devout reverence throughout the service, but inwardly she scorned his words.
‘What’s so impressive about Divine Power gained that way? Why strain his voice over it?’
She knew well enough what Meltears could do with his Divine Power—he healed wounds torn and gaping, and he struck down lesser monsters. It was competent enough, she supposed.
‘It’s a decent ability, but compared to Bloden’s Supernatural Ability and mine, it’s hardly noteworthy.’
As Nelloa contemplated her own Ability, a shiver of revelation ran through her.
She could generate the gates from which monsters emerged; Bloden summoned the Demon Lord’s Army to destroy them. The complementarity struck her like a revelation—it was as though she were the spear and he the shield.
She was the spear. Bloden was the shield.
‘Could the relationship between Bloden and Nelloa actually be like Romeo and Juliet?’
Of course, there were differences.
Bloden didn’t know that Nelloa was the source of the gates appearing, whereas Romeo and Juliet knew they came from feuding houses.
And Romeo and Juliet ended in tragedy. But Nelloa was repackaging her Ability in different terms, so she could ensure a happy ending with Bloden.
‘Everyone will come to see that I belong at his side.’
At that moment, Meltears concluded his sermon, and the choir standing to one side began singing a hymn, signaling the end of the service.
Once this hymn finished, the congregation would disperse.
Now was the moment.
“Oh, God! Is this truly your will?”
Nelloa cried out to the empty air and rose abruptly to her feet.
Every eye in the Cathedral turned toward her, but Nelloa’s composure never wavered as she surveyed her surroundings, her voice clear and luminous.
“I saw a brilliant light just now and heard God’s voice. I was told that a Derivative Gate has appeared in the Southern Forest of Pobans Domain.”
The Southern Forest of Pobans Domain was only a ten-minute ride on horseback from here, so Meltears immediately dispatched the Holy Knights. And the curious faithful, their interest thoroughly kindled, remained in their seats, murmuring with excitement instead of leaving.
It did not take long for Nelloa’s words to be validated.
“We have discovered a Derivative Gate approximately thirty centimeters in diameter.”
The faithful who heard the Holy Knights report this to Meltears were astounded.
And Meltears raised both arms high and declared loudly:
“Behold! God has seen fit to show us mercy, sending us this Saint!”
Clark, standing beside her, immediately dispatched a reporter to the news agency. Over the following days, through Clark’s articles, Nelloa revealed the location of successive Derivative Gates at intervals.
The moment it was confirmed that Nelloa, during her stay at the Cathedral, had pinpointed the location of three gates with perfect accuracy, people began to recognize her as a Saint. And Clark’s name, who had broken the news on Derivative Gate discoveries faster than any other reporter, became known to all.
<The Emperor who seals the gates. The Saint who discovers them.>
Soon, public opinion began to take the form Nelloa desired.
“I hear the Saint is being considered as a candidate for Empress?”
“My, would the two of them be bound in matrimony to protect the Empire?”
“If the two of them were to unite and seal the Derivative Gates from their inception, we’d all be safe!”
Nelloa smiled with quiet satisfaction and turned to Clark.
“How many novelists have we commissioned so far?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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